Anyone know a good tutorial to learn how to use metaballs? My metaball creations look like crap and I have a feeling I'm not doing it right... Help me out PLEASE!!! -SATO

Not sure there are any ( at least I don't know of any). Some rules of thumb (also do a search for metaballs on forum). 1. Treat them as virtual clay. 2. The object box dictates it's influence on other metaballs (the closer the boxes are to each other the more they melt together) 3. Grouped metaballs don't interact with other metaballs, only those within the group. 4. You can't turn off AA for metaballs or trees 5. Only some volume materials work with metaballs, experiment. That's about all I can think of right now.

Shift+clicking on the icon to create a metaball = a negative metaball.

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Ooops yeah forgot that important one. As a side note to that metaballs (nor trees from the tree lab) can be booleaned.

I learned metaballs by playing with Metasequoia, which allows for all the basic primitives to be used in positive or negative metaball shapes. Meta calls it "blob" tool. So when B5 came out, it was a real basic tool to only have spheres. I guess best advice is to keep playing. Do a search here in the forum because I know there were some posts about 'how to' with the metaball back when B5 was released. Maybe we do need a tut or two. If no one finds one, I'll put that on my TTD list (which is a bit long at the moment).

I've skimmed around, couldn't find anything yet offsite. AS

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AS - what do you mean by negative metaball?

Like a negative boolean (basically). The metaballs, react to each other strangely so you can get some crazy shapes.

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Wireframe example...

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...and what it looks like rendered.

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There were some really good tutorials by Crackmine on the subject of Meteballs. I don't know what has happened to the tutorial pages here, there used to be loads of stuff? He is still posting work here so send him an IM, he might upload the information again.

Oh I see. Thanks for letting me know AS. Catlin

what buttons do you push for that effect you just showed?ive been looking forever for this answer.

oh yeah and where did all the bryce tutorials go?

Metaballs are WAY confusing for me... I read all kinds of stuff created with metaballs but I dunno.. I guess I gotta not be such a baby about it and just screw around with it when ever I have free time...

negative metaballs are created by shift+ click on the metaball create icon. They don't look any different than a regular metaball in wireframe so I suggest renaming it so you don't lose it (otherwise it's just called metaball##).

Aye, Metaballs are silly, but they remind me of Biospheres from Amorphium? But without the "energy" factor, it reduces their power for me. I got too used to Amorphium, I suppose! I'd like to try Metasequoia, I keep hearing good things about it! I thought it was just a tree maker?

Brendan - I made a search of members for Crackmine but came up with a blank. Are you sure he's still a member?

All I could find was a "Crakmine", (no "c") the last time he posted in the Bryce Forum was to vote in the Jan 2002 Challenge. Seems he's only been posting photo's for quite a while, pretty good ones. Old Bryce Tutorials - Go to the tutorial section, and there is a link called "offsite links", click that, it'll take you to the old tutorials. I think what I should do is go through the old Bryce Tutorial links, contact the authors and see if they would re-upload their tutorials to the new section, so they can be permanent. AgentSmith

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Cheers AgentSmith. :)

I FOUND IT! Lol...jeez, I KNEW it was there somewhere. Anyway, Crakmine did an Amazing seashell with metaballs, another person (Dragool) hosts his tutorial on how to do it. Dragool called Crakmine, Crackmine...I'm sure many would not think about the spelling. Anyway, here's his Metaball seashell; http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=113369&Start=361&Artist=Crakmine&ByArtist=Yes Here is the tutorial! http://www.dragool.com/shell1.html AS

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Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=286798&Start=1&Artist=BlueArdor&ByArtist=Yes

Hi sato.. if nothing else metaballs are fun! I used them alot in my last two scenes. The link is to my first attempt at a sort of alien portraiture. It's "cartoonish" but I like it that way. Good luck.